Mayor: Man who stopped Chisholm shootings is hero

The man who stopped a bar shooting incident by hitting the suspected gunman with a chair was hailed as a hero on Monday by the mayor of the small northeastern Minnesota town of Chisholm.

The Saturday night shootings at Jim's Sports Club Bar and Grill left one man dead, another critically wounded and a third with a less serious wound. Authorities said the suspect had gone to the bar to confront his ex-wife, who was sitting at the victims' table.

Ryan Simonson, 27, of Chisholm, confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday that he was the patron who smashed a chair over the suspect's head, knocking him unconscious.

"He's a hero," Mayor Michael Jugovich told AP, adding that Simonson likely saved other lives, given that the suspect had a second gun he was unable to use.

Simonson said he wasn't sure how to react to being called a hero.

"Right now it's just kind of so surreal - I'm not thinking about that aspect of it, I guess," Simonson said.

Edward John Walberg, 40, died of his injuries Saturday night. An autopsy showed he died of a single gunshot wound. Cale Steve Nelson, 29, remained in critical condition Monday following surgery at St. Mary's Medical Center in Duluth for two gunshot wounds to the abdomen. Larry Vernon Elj, 38, was shot in the shoulder and was treated and released from a Hibbing hospital.

The 47-year-old suspect was a Chisholm police officer in the 1980s and had been working more recently as a meter reader in the Iron Range city's water department, Jugovich said. "He's an ideal employee, dedicated and hard working," he said.

The man was treated for injuries and released from Fairview University Medical Center-Mesabi in Hibbing, according to a hospital spokeswoman. Vern Manner, the interim police chief in Chisholm, said the suspect was in custody Monday in the St. Louis County Jail in Hibbing. Manner said he expected charges to be filed Wednesday.

Simonson said the suspect had come into the bar earlier Saturday night and angrily accused one man, who was not injured, of having had something to do with the suspect's ex-wife. Simonson said the suspect wouldn't calm down, so Nelson put him in a headlock and Simonson then helped wrestle him to the ground. The bar owner told the suspect to leave.

About 15 minutes later, Simonson said, he had gone to get a beer from the bar when he saw the suspect return with his hands in his pockets. He said he saw the man go into the other section, where they had been sitting, and he then heard five or six shots - and screaming. Simonson said he knew his friends were in trouble.

Simonson said things happened so fast he's fuzzy on the details, but he believes he threw a chair at the suspect, then grabbed another chair and hit him over the head.

"I basically kept hitting him until he wasn't moving any more," he said.

Then, Simonson said, he looked down and saw the victims. He said Walberg appeared to be dead already, but Nelson was still alive, so he got down and put pressure on his wounds to try to stop the bleeding and kept him talking until the ambulance arrived.

Simonson said he gets a "weird feeling" looking back at what he did.

"Honestly I'm just kind of puzzled about it right now," Simonson said. "I don't know what made me do it."

The mayor said he had been sitting at the same table where the shootings took place but had won a raffle and went home briefly to drop off his prize. He said Walberg had taken his seat. Jugovich said he was just returning when the shooting started, and he didn't see it happen.

The bar was packed following an annual Chamber of Commerce fundraising golf tournament on a nearby lake. The mayor said it had been "a perfect day" until the trouble started and it would be an "understatement" to say the town was still stunned Monday.

"This is not what we're all about" Jugovich said. "This is not Chisholm. We are a quiet community. We are close-knit. We know our neighbors. We like our friends and neighbors. This was a senseless act of violence. This is not what we're about - I can't emphasize that enough. We are a peaceful community."